In the past, I called posts like the one I am about to make, “A Victory for the Bullies,” however, I get the impression that some of you are tired of seeing that title. Therefore, I’m using stealth tactics and giving the post another title. This does not stop what you are about to read being yet another victory for the bullies.

Following the death of her friend, who took her own life on account of the bullying she was receiving, Emily Gipson of Lebanon Tennessee, posted a free verse poem about the bullying and suicide going on at her school. She was given permission by a teacher to use his classroom as a backdrop for a school project. The video she made for her poem chalked up 600,000 views on Youtube.

If you have been following my posts for awhile, you probably already have guessed that the school reacted to the video in a way that was not favourable to Emily. That’s right, she was suspended from school for two days. The school’s reason behind the suspension: She was in the school after hours and after all students were told they had to be out of the building. While the school denies the suspension was anything due to the content of the video, the teacher was mortified by the content, and even denied claims that the suspension was down to the video inciting violence, I still can’t help wonder that the denial was a smokescreen. Once again, we see a school using some bullshit violation of a school rule to punish someone who wants to do something about the bullying at their school.

Please watch the video and judge for yourself:

To address any possible backlash, I am in no way saying that being a bullying victim or speaking out against bullying is an excuse to break the rules. True, Miss Gipson might have been in the school building when she shouldn’t have been, but she was given permission by a teacher to be there. Plus, as a teacher myself, if I had given a pupil permission to use my classroom for a project, I would have at least checked on the pupil at least once, for safety reasons if anything else. This way, if Emily was saying anything shocking or inflammatory, he could have stopped it. So, this teacher isn’t totally guiltless here.

As for the school, I believe that the suspension of Emily was a reaction to the fact that she had highlighted bullying at the school. No school likes to admit that such a thing goes on in their institution. They have even stated that they never had any complaints of bullying from Emily or her friend who committed suicide. However, other students have claimed that it did go on. Besides, how many cases of unreported bullying are there in schools across America? I suspect millions. Many victims are too scared to report bullying and that’s probably why the school never heard about it. But instead of trying to address the issue of bullying, they decided to suspended this brave girl who had the stones to speak out against the terrible plague that is bullying.

Reflecting back to events of the past couple of weeks and over the entire time I have been writing, I believe that its time to venture forth and ask, “Are the schools at fault when it comes to bullying?” Looking at the recent event in Virginia where a mother was arrested and nearly charged with a felony for putting a recording device in her daughter’s bag to find out if she was getting bullied, I would say yes in this case. The mother did try going through the correct procedure of informing the school that her daughter was being bullied but had no response. Therefore, she did what she did out of exasperation. It might not have been the right thing to do as there are lots of privacy issues here but the school failed the mother, plain and simple.

I have no doubt that if the school intervened, there would have been no need for the mother to put a recording device into her daughter’s bag. But why are schools seem to be slow or inactive in dealing with bullying? As a teacher myself, I know how overworked schools and teachers are. In many cases, they aren’t simply ignoring a bullying instance, however, they are so stressed out over their workload that it gets pushed to the back-burner. BTW, I am not using this to excuse schools for not dealing with the bullying, far from it. Bullying cases should be fast-tracked to the top of the school’s attention so it can be dealt with before too much suffering happens.

Other reasons for schools not seeming to handle bullying is the simple fact that they don’t know it’s going on. Many victims are afraid to report bullying for many reasons like looking weak, worried the school won’t take them seriously or reprisals by the bullies outside of school. Of course, some school officials and teachers bury their head in the sand because they don’t want to have to deal with it, so they pretend to know nothing about it. Then they play dumb if pulled up on it. This is wrong and what should happen more is that victims should be totally encouraged to report the bullying they suffer.

What really grinds my gears, (sorry, I’m a Family Guy fan), is how some schools over react when victims or their parents decide enough is enough and take matters into their own hands. The latest incident in Virginia is a prime example and for another good one, read my ancient post, “A Victory for the Bullies.” I theorize that schools react this way because they have been seen as not dealing with the bullying, so, because they lack evidence against the bullies, use the letter of the law to punish the victims because that victim has just embarrassed the school by highlighting the school’s inability to efficiently tackle bullying. This is lame in my view and in my opinion brings more shame upon the school.

Family Guy

Ideas leading to more ideas about future posts has given me inspiration here. Using the novels I popularly use, “Nineteen Minutes” by Jodi Picoult, “Endgame” by the late Nancy Garden, “Rupture” by Simon Lelic and my own novel, “He Was Weird,” all novels where bullying results in a school shooting, I will look at each story and see how well the school handled the bullying in it. I tell you now, that I’m not holding out much hope for the schools here but it should make interesting reading.

To buy He Was Weird, go to: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Was-Weird-Lefevre-Michael-Paperback/dp/B00YRC6826/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1512406367&sr=1-3&keywords=he+was+weird

Last week, I posted about how a mother in Virginia was facing criminal charges because she put a recording device into her daughter’s back pack to see whether or not she was getting bullied. Yesterday, the charges against this mother have been dropped. FFI click on the link:

For the past three weeks, all sorts of worry has followed since I wrote my post about the misuse of history. My biggest worry is that I came across as being a racist, which I’m not. I think my big mistake was going into too much detail and letting the facts run away with me. Maybe my opinions were too intense for some, I don’t know. What I do know is that throughout history, history has been misused by persons in order to fulfill some sort of agenda. By the left as a stick to beat people with and by the right to foster hatred and sometimes false senses of national pride.

Robert E Lee, this statue should not be torn down

One controversial point I made in that post was that I thought that statues of Robert E Lee should not be torn down. I know that he fought for the Confederacy whose cause was the maintaining of slavery in the South. It could be argued that it was because of his brilliant generalship, that the US Civil War lasted four years. He embarrassed several Union generals in the early years of the war and even his defeat at Gettysburg led to Lincoln sacking the general who won the battle. It took General Grant who realized that while the Union may lose 25,000 men and the Confederacy only 20,000, the Union could afford to lose that number while the Confederacy couldn’t. Basically, Grant wore Lee down in a war of attrition. My point here is that Lee was a great general who just happened to fight on the side which was pro-slavery. He, like so many Americans, fought for the side his home state did. Tearing down his statues does not alter that fact nor should his statue be seen as some symbol to slavery because I never saw it that way.

Abraham Lincoln Battalion

A slightly more recent historical confusion came in the form of the Spanish Civil War. For those who don’t know, the Spanish Civil War was between forces loyal to the elected government, which was left of centre and included socialists and communists and the Nationalist forces led by General Franco. History has shown Franco to be a fascist dictator, supported by Italy led by Mussolini and Nazi Germany. When the war started, thousands of men and women from many other countries came to Spain to fight on the side of the Loyalists against Franco. Roughly three-thousand of these were from the United States who formed the Abraham Lincoln Battalion. The battalion fought bravely in many engagements and many were killed during the three years they fought in Spain. One historical point: The Abraham Lincoln Battalion was the first American military unit to have full racial integration.

A few years back, I commented elsewhere that I never agreed with former US President Ronald Reagan’s comment that the Abraham Lincoln Battalion fought on the wrong side. Many people agreed with my comment but one person asked me if I would have liked Spain to have become like the USSR if the Loyalists had won. I asked him to provide evidence to this and while his response was “You’re kidding right?,” he never provided such evidence.

To me, this is another misuse of history. I have read a historical ‘What if’ that said Spain would have become a Soviet satellite state because the Loyalists had backing from Stalin and during the civil war, Spanish Communists carried out Stalinist style purges on their own side. Maybe so, we can only speculate here but my question is: “What made those Americans and others from around the world go to Spain and fight on the side of the Loyalists if they were determined to set up a Soviet state?” One argument would be that they were fighting against fascism and that was a noble cause. With the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, there was a genuine fear in the 1930s of fascism spreading, even more so that Communism. Maybe they were simply fighting on the side that they thought was right and it is only armchair historians who have put in their own conclusions on the matter based on some historical knowledge. Thinking about it can drive me to insanity. Still, I don’t think that the Abraham Lincoln Battalion fought on the wrong side. Additionally, wrong or right, these Americans sacrificed a lot to go to another country and fight for a cause and isn’t that what America is supposed to be all about?

I have always loved history. In “He Was Weird,” Mark also loves history although when he imparts certain historical knowledge, he gets bullied for “showing off.” A second ago, I was going to write that my last statement was a digression from the intent of the post but it is linked. Throughout the ages, history has been misused. Often times it’s misused by the right to foster hate or promote patriotism and misused by the left as a stick to beat people with. Either way, history gets misused.

The right’s misuse of history is very straight forward. They want to use it to celebrate historical events that make their country look great. At the same time, they want events that don’t make their country look so good de-emphasized or not taught at all. Look at the holocaust deniers, which is why the best thing Dwight Eisenhower did in World War 2 was to order photos taken of the concentration camps. Because like he said, “In fifty years time, some bastard will say that this never happened.” He was right.

Back in the 1980s and I’m sure it still goes on, the American right wanted the Vietnam War de-emphasized where pupils were taught, that America didn’t really lose or that the protesters lost the war for America and we would have won if it wasn’t for that. Gee, when I was in the marines, some of my fellow marines said the army lost Vietnam for us. The right’s obsession with covering up Vietnam even got the point where Jello Biafra has a three minute tirade called, “Vietnam Never Happened.” It’s quite funny. Has it worked? Well, it did back in the 80s. I remember a teenager stating that America won Vietnam. Also, the greatest but little known success of the Reagan presidency was the vilification of the 1960s.

Other nations are the same. In my adopted home, the UK, British children are not taught about the American War of Independence and if mentioned, those on the right are quick to point out that Britain won most of the battles, they did. Then again, they aren’t taught about the French and Indian War which Britain did win. The only mention I’ve ever heard or seen was a history documentary about the decisive victory at the Battle of Quebec. I know that the right wing in other countries are the same way with the teaching of history.

Now to the left, which my Asperger’s mind has real problems with. The left go totally the opposite way with the teaching of history, to the point where they want to portray their country as evil. The British Empire is a prime example of this. See, in principle, I agree that the Britain and some of the other European nations proclaiming parts of Africa and Asia as part of their empires was wrong. I know that a lot of atrocities were committed in the name of the Empire and I think that was terrible too. However, my question is, how long should the people today pay for the sins of their forefathers? The left uses this history as justification for letting all the world come settle in their country. While they may have a point, it’s not practical. The empires were more than 100 years ago and those nations now have independence. Yet the left wants to use events of over a century ago as a stick to beat the people of today with and this leads to my point. History is a learning tool used to point out where people went wrong or got it right and used to guide the future generations so they won’t make the same mistakes as their fathers did. I’m talking right and left here.

Before anyone on the left who is reading this starts calling me racist, I’m not. However, history is used by both left and right as a tool for racism. American history is full of examples, especially in regards to African Americans. Slavery was wrong, totally wrong. The right use it to point out to African Americans that they should be lucky they weren’t living back then if they think that they have it so bad now. What a load of hogwash! Furthermore, white people living in the North, have no right to use it as an excuse to lord it over the South and especially towards African Americans whom Northern whites on the right believe should feel grateful to them for freeing them from the bonds of slavery. I wonder is this the reason why I have met a good number of African Americans from the South who have “Southern pride.” And to Northern right wingers, it’s not Stockholm Syndrome. On the other hand, slavery should not be used as an excuse by African Americans to hate whites. This is also punishing the children for the sins of their fathers and why should I be hated for something that ended a century before I was born? And thanks to my step mother’s efforts in tracing my geneology, I can say with a good deal of certainty that none of my ancestors were involved in slavery while it was going on. Slavery in America is a perfect example of how the right uses history as a tool to oppress and how the left uses it as a stick to beat people with. In either case, the end result is hate.

Robert E Lee, this statue should not be torn down

I’d like to raise a point about the American Civil War here. This is directed to the Southerners I’ve met in my lifetime who haven’t dealt with the fact that the South lost. First, if the South had won, the United States would be two separate nations and not as strong as it is now. A Southern victory would have made the Monroe Doctrine unenforceable and the nations of Europe would have expanded their empires to South America. That is why during the war, France went in and took over Mexico. Furthermore, Germany might have won World War 1 and God knows what would have happened with World War 2. So, maybe it was good for the US and the world that the Union won the Civil War. I am not trying to lord the North’s victory over the South, in fact, I am dead against the tearing down of Robert E Lee’s statues. He was a great general and should be honoured as such. After all, Rommel fought on the side that promoted genocide but I’ve heard no claims against him. I’m just using history in hindsight to show the good things that came out of that war.

I guess what I am doing is trying to make sense of the use of history in my own mind. The teaching of it has often times been misused to further some political agenda, both by the left and right. It should be taught that while most historical events have been for the best, there are some which haven’t. The only tool history should be used for is a learning one so we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past and build on the successes of that past in the hope of building a better future.

To buy He Was Weird, go to: https://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505813006&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird

During the half century plus six years, I have been alive, many thoughts have come and gone in my mind. This is a trait with many people with Asperger’s Syndrome and DAMP, two things I believe I have but have never been formally diagnosed with. You can believe that many a topic from sports to politics to religion have danced around my brain daring me to make some sort of sense of it all in my mind. I have come to my own conclusions on many of these topics while others are still providing lots of questions inside my brain. Therefore, what I am going to do now is to share my thoughts on many things here on Peaceful Rampage.

I’ve never been very vocal about my thoughts, mainly because out of fear that they won’t match others. See, one issue I have spent a lifetime grappling with is my belief that if someone has a different view than me, then mine must be wrong. I wrote a post about this many moons ago called, “I’m Always Wrong,” if you would like to read this. These days, I have come to the understanding that my beliefs might not agree with others and in many cases I am probably in the minority. After all, I was only one of 2% of Americans who voted for Jill Stein for president last year. So, I know that what I am going to post over the next few posts may not agree with the norm, I am going to do so anyway because the objective here is to point out things that prove my insanity. Some of my beliefs and theories may seem outlandish to some.

Green Party Candidate Jill Stein

I hope that you will come along for the ride. You may find what you read amusing and even enlightening but you will also get an insight into the workings of my weird and wonderful brain. Anyone who doesn’t agree with any of the points I make, they are free to tell me they disagree here. I am open minded although unlike me of the past, I won’t automatically change my thoughts to your way of thinking. The only thing I ask of everyone is that if any debate should develop, people express their opinions in a civilized manner and not resort to hurling insults at one another.

One last point, my other fear is that I am straying away from the original objective of this blog, to sell my book “He Was Weird.” It is my bizarre hope that once people are introduced to my insane mind, they will see what motivated me to write the book and hopefully but it.

To buy He Was Weird, go to: https://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1504034377&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird

What is normally found with people who have Asperger’s Syndrome is that many are really focused on their personal interests, sometimes to the point where it looks like an obsession. From my experiences, many of the people I work with have their own interests and can become very obsessive over them. Take the two service users I work with most of the time. One likes to read the Teletext pages on his TV to keep abreast of world news and he has a ritual in town where he counts cars. The objective of this is only clear in his mind. The other gentleman has different interests and can border on obsession. He is interested in wars, especially both world ones, naturally disasters and attacks on humans by large predators. I’m talking sharks and crocodiles mainly. He helps to satisfy these interests by purchasing DVDs, post cards and models and if we didn’t keep it in check, would spend all his money on it.

I realized many years ago that my interests have sometimes bordered on obsession, especially when I was a lot younger. Like my client, I too liked war. In fourth grade it was the Native American wars with the US Cavalry and one George Armstrong Custer became a hero of mine. The war interest re-established itself inside my mind in my last three years of high school but this time it was World War II. I began collecting the Time-Life books on it, which I still have.

General George A Custer

However, my interests came and went, sometimes with the school year. In fifth grade, war changed to sports and that changed within itself when I hit sixth grade. My fifth grade interest in American Football gave way to ice hockey. While I still loved those sports in seventh grade, they took a back seat to an interest in the solar system after learning about it in school. I especially have a fondness for the planet Uranus, don’t ask where that came from. Thanks to the film in 1975, my freshman year in high school was spent in what some called obsession of Rollerball. And for those who read my 80smetalman blog, I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I had an ongoing love for music, at least hard rock and heavy metal anyway.

My favourite planet other than our own, Uranus

While these interests came and went, they never left my mind totally. My fourth grade interest in General Custer laid dormant in my mind enough for me to write my junior year history essay on the Battle of Little Big Horn. He also propped up when I watched a documentary on the Civil War and was quite pleased that he played a role in the Union victory at Gettysburg, even if it was done by a series of reckless charges. World War 2 interest has always remained with me although like most of America in the 1980s, I too was fascinated with the Vietnam films. I still enjoy watching “Rollerball” and love American football and ice hockey. However, my interest in the planets in our solar system is the most recent one to return.

Of course I can say that my interest in it never left. It made a strong comeback in 1999 when the BBC aired and eight part series called “The Planets.” I really enjoyed that series despite being a little disappointed that NASA found my favourite planet boring when Voyager II flew past. But as it’s the rule with the BBC, if I really like something they show, they never show it again. Recently, I finally purchased the series on DVD and am watching it again. It might be out of date by now, for instance, the planned Cassini mission to Saturn has happened in 2003, but that hasn’t stopped my enjoyment of it. Plus, whenever I get the chance when supply teaching, I will teach a lesson about the solar system.

The problem with having strong interests is how the ‘rest of the world’ perceives it. In school, I was often ridiculed and even bullied for having these strong interests. “Is that all you think about?” was a standard question asked of me a lot during this time. People’s justification for their intolerance and bullying was that my constant talk about my interests annoyed them. However, what I should have said to them back then was their slight ‘annoyance’ was no excuse for violence or threats of it. In many cases, these so called annoyed people simply let it annoy them as an excuse to bully. A simple, “I’m not into that” would have stopped me from talking about it.

I wonder how many people with Asperger’s Syndrome were bullying victims because of people’s ‘annoyance’ with their interest or obsessions. I know Mark was in “He Was Weird” and like when I went through at the time, the adults blamed him for going on too much about his interests. That’s a big trait of someone with ASD. They are interested in it so much, they want to talk about it. Those in the ‘normal’ world need to understand that and while they have every right to not be interested in the interests of another, bullying, intimidation and violence is not the way to get them to stop.

To buy He Was Weird, go to: https://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1500801442&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird

Fuck being a victim, or continue experiencing abuse after it’s spotted.

If I can recognize it, and when I do recognize it, done. No apologies. And an extra go-fuck-yourself automatically included. Free of charge.

The trick is how to recognize an abusive relationship when Autistic (or Neurodiverse) traits make it not understood until far too late.

Cutting ties to an abusive person includes a few consistent patterns in my experience — actually all my past abusers from childhood to recent (physical, sexual, emotional or gaslighting type) shared these traits:

I’m to blame. They are the victim and I’m the one that caused the issues and at fault for the abuse. If the abuser suffers any consequences for their behaviors, that’s some fault of mine they had to suffer.

The abuser is always publicly, loudly, quietly, always the victim. Someone is always at fault for their behaviors and no responsibility is…

When I read about this last week, I had already written my weekly post for Peaceful Rampage and therefore, I thought I’d wait a week to see if there were any further developments. To my knowledge, there are none. The teacher in Newport, Kentucky who was suspended by her school for speaking out against bullying, remains suspended. If this is the first time you’ve heard about the story, then click the link below.

In short, here we have a teacher who is concerned about bullying at her school, so she speaks out about it. The school in response suspends the teacher for the rest of the school year without pay. Furthermore, the school has refused to speak out about bullying and even downplaying, it stating that the bullying problems were down to that teacher’s lack of classroom management. However, bullying has been reported to have happened throughout the entire school.

What we have is a school who wants to downplay or deny any bullying going on at their school. Furthermore, they take action against a teacher who is brave enough to speak out about it. So, chalk up another victory for bullies.

My question is when are schools going to own up to the fact that bullying still goes on. While I can understand that no school is comfortable with bullying happening at it, the answer is not to sweep it under the carpet. This happens all too often and I had no problem highlighting the point in “He Was Weird.” Furthermore, the worse thing the school can do is to take action against the person(s) who speak up about it. Sometimes it’s even the victim! Instead, what we need is for schools to get it out into the open, identify all bullying and come up with effective strategies that not only stop the bullying but prevent it from happening in the future.

To buy He Was Weird, go to https://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496174939&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird

It would be a complete lie if I didn’t admit that a large part of my writing “He Was Weird” was influenced by the speech by Jello Biafra I heard in 2005. After all, it was that speech that made me realize that in the case of school shootings, this could have been me. Also like Jello, one of the reasons why it was never me was that I had no access to guns or any money to go out and buy them. What I can say was that speech made me think and reflect back to less happier times in my past and that got me to write the book.

For the record, I never intentionally plagiarized anything Mr Biafra said in that speech. If anything, I took what was said and went the opposite way with it. The best example was with Jello’s constant identification of religion. In some of the school shootings he refers to, Columbine included, he points out the “being bullied to believe” attitude that permeates many small towns in America. He attacks the attitude that if children had more religion in their lives, they wouldn’t do such horrible things. Yes, I find it difficult not to laugh at that notion too. So what I did in the book was to make Mark a Born Again Christian. Fairly early in the story, he accepts Jesus as his Saviour but that does nothing to quell the bullying hell he is suffering. While his conversion leads to the best week of his young life, it is also short lived. What religion does do for Mark in preparation for his big day is to give him courage to carry out his rampage via two verses in the Bible. I guess hanging the ten commandments up in the classroom wouldn’t have prevented the shooting in this case.

Jello Biafra

Another big part of that speech playfully attacks those who are convinced that Marilyn Manson and violent computer games like Doom causes school shootings. I never followed the argument that games like Doom desensitize a person from violence. Most kids and adults play these games as a release and nothing more. Killing aliens and monsters and even enemy soldiers on a screen is a good way to unwind after a tough day. However, in “He Was Weird,” Mark doesn’t own any CDs or computer games that would contribute to him carrying out his shooting. No Marilyn Manson or Doom, the only music the police find in Mark’s room after the shooting are by two Christian Rock bands and the only computer games are an ice hockey game and the Age of Empires series. Of course, the latter is blamed on Mark’s rampage by some people. They argue that those games gave Mark the military know how to carry out his plan that day. As a result, some victims try to sue Microsoft and others try to get the teacher who ran the computer games club fired. Well, they had to blame something I guess.

Marilyn Manson-

There are probably other things in Jello Biafra’s speech which also influenced my writing of “He Was Weird.” These are only minor points and if I remember them, I’ll post about those in the future. The biggest things were religion and the belief that music and computer games cause school shootings.

To buy He Was Weird, go to https://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495650963&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird